A trenchant history of community organizing and a mustreadampamp160for the next generation of organizers seeking to learn fromampamp160the successes failures and contradictions of the past.The community organizing tradition is long overdue for reexamination. Inampamp160Occupation Organizer scholar and activist Clampamp233eacutement Petitjean traces that historyampamp160from its roots in the Progressive movement to its expansion and diverging pathsampamp160during the social movements of the 1960s and 70s when Saul Alinsky became theampamp160most popular professional radical in the US while groups like Student Nonviolentampamp160Coordinating Committee Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panthersampamp160recast organizers as horizontal antihierarchical spadeworkersthose who do theampamp160work as part of the community rather than standing apart from it.But in the years since the professionalization of organizing work has onlyampamp160increased despite the critiques. Only by grappling with its limitations and pitfallsampamp160Petitjean insists can we learn to build durable effective organizations for change.